woo@pioneer.arpa (Alex Woo) (06/16/88)
Is the data type Double Precision COMPLEX part of the FORTRAN 77 standard? How about arbitrary precision COMPLEX in the new 8x standard? Alex
ags@s.cc.purdue.edu (Dave Seaman) (06/17/88)
In article <10423@ames.arc.nasa.gov> woo@pioneer.UUCP (Alex Woo) writes: >Is the data type Double Precision COMPLEX part of the >FORTRAN 77 standard? No. >How about arbitrary precision COMPLEX >in the new 8x standard? Yes. -- Dave Seaman ags@j.cc.purdue.edu
cdb@hpclcdb.HP.COM (Carl Burch) (06/22/88)
> Is the data type Double Precision COMPLEX part of the > FORTRAN 77 standard? No. > How about arbitrary precision COMPLEX in the new 8x standard? No, not "arbitrary" precision - the committee calls it "generalized precision", but (as a compiler-writer) I prefer to call it "compiler- selectable" precision. The user specifies the precision needed for the problem, and the compiler selects the machine data type giving that precision (and exponent range) or greater. COMPLEX is also generalized in this way. One of the problems with the current draft is that the results are "processor-dependent" when the request exceeds the data types on the machine. The political prognosis of all this in the F8x standard is kind of mixed - there seems to be a good bit of sympathy in the committee for simplfying the generalized precision feature, but there seems to be a consensus that some form of DOUBLE COMPLEX is a high-priority requirement. - Carl Burch HP Fortran